April 25, 2003
The weblog community is very much like a neighborhood. We know who are neighbors are, know which ones we like and like to visit. We don’t know everything about all of them but we know enough to be glad that some of them live so close by, and we would hate to see them move out of our reach.
So, I’m personally glad that the campaign to Save the Bird has worked. It looks as though Jonathan Delacour raised enough money to keep the Bird Burning. Getting together to help out neighbors who need our help can work as well online as it can in the real world. It all depends on the kind of people those neighbors are.
Meanwhile, I got a really nice boost from some non-blogger netsurfer whom I don’t know at all. Back around Thanksgiving he emailed me to say how much he liked reading my weblog, and recently (as I was bemoaning my lack of fame) emailed me again. There’s something very touching about a stranger going out of his way to send you a “thumbs-up.” Those of us who blog do so in hopes of being read, of having what we write mean something to someone other than ourselves. If we didn’t, we’d just type our thoughts into a Word document and file it away.
I don’t know what percent of Net users are bloggers, but a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project cited by CNN states that 42 percent of Americans do not use the Internet. The study goes on to report that 56 percent of nonusers say they will probably never go online. Sometimes we bloggers forget that most of the rest of the world does not care about what we do here. But that’s how it tends to go with neighborhoods anyway.
Comments now powered by HaloScan. Click here to read this entry's comments (if any), or to post one of your own.
Old Comments (2)
Elayne Riggs on 27 Apr 2003
I agree that the blog community is wonderful. I'm not sure about the whole thing of raising money to keep one's blog alive, if free blogging is available from so many places; that seems kind of weird to me. But the support and the kindness and the good feelings in general are terrific. I just e-mailed Sheila Lennon the other day talking about how much I liked her stuff, and she wrote back and said she didn't get a lot of fan mail (which surprised me, she blogs for an actual professional newspaper, as opposed to us amateurs) and really appreciated mine because she got some stupid hate mail the same day. The best thing we can do is make the world a better place for each other!!!
Kate S. on 30 Apr 2003
I keep forgetting that the entire world isn't plugged in. There was an informal study done a few years back on Alaskans who were plugged in. I wasn't surprised to hear a very high 68%, which has climbed up to 75% recently. Why not? What else is there to do up here, especially if you don't want to hang out in stinky bars getting ripped every night. The cold keeps us close to home most of the year, so that lets out only infrequent trips to town to stock on supplies and you can't leave it out to freeze while you dash in to catch a quick movie or dinner!
I am so glad to have the internet and blogging community which allows me to reach out and touch someone--and get touched back with warm touchy, feelies from so many wonderful new friends.